Old is New

It’s not a “concept” or one-off; it’s a real tractor called the Intrac, made and marketed by Deutz (now Deutz-Fahr) from the early 1970s until 1990, a vision of the future from the past.

Picture: www.isthat.info

Information about it on the internet in English seems scarce – I had to Google Translate from German to find out more about it. The running gear is the same as a conventional tractor, with the engine at the front driving the rear wheels or with 4WD.

German Wikipedia says that Deutz-Fahr discontinued the Intrac because of its high cost. Contemporary tractors need to comply with very strict anti-pollution laws which make their engine and cooling packages huge. The compact, slanted, air-cooled engine above would be out of the question today; it would be necessary to invest in a one-off engine package for the Intrac, which would be prohibitively costly.

As with passenger cars, legislation is there to keep us safer and healthier and manufacturing efficiency brings costs down, but they can both also put a brake on innovation. Conformity is the easy way out and innovation mostly takes place out of sight.